Check-stub blank



March 24, 1970 F. v. GRABLER 3,502,352

' CHECK-STUB BLANK Filed Oct. 30. 1967 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 loa a .1 (PR/0R ART) mwN-ron ,FRANK M GRABLER March 24, 1970 F. v. GRABLER 3,502,352

CHECK-STUB BLANK Filed oct. so. 19s? 2 sheets-sheet 2 G/lgo ga INVENTQR FRANK' V. GRAl. 5R

www

TTORNEY AUnited States Patent O 3,502,352 `CHECK-STUB BLANK Frank V. Grabler, Sunnyside, N.Y., assignor to International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, Nutley, NJ., a corporation of Maryland Filed Oct. 30, 1967, Ser. No. 679,058 Int. Cl. B41l 1/24 U.S. Cl. 282-22 1 'Claim ABSTRACT F THE DISCLOSURE A check and stub blank form in which two sheets are placed back-to-back with the top sheet including a check portion and a tear-away portion. The bottom sheet is the check stub and the two sheets are temporarily secured at their ends by perforated portions. In this manner the check portion may be addressed by one standard equipment machine after which the two sheets may be opened by tearing along one perforation after which the stub and check may be filled in by a second standard equipment machine adapted to handle a different length of form.

Summary of the invention A check-stub blank is provided comprising a lirst and second elongated sheet, each sheet having printing on its face. The sheets are held together at their ends by removable holding means positioned at each end of the sheet, so that the Iback of the sheets are held in contact. The first sheet consists of a blank check portion and a separable tear-away portion held at one end by one of the holding means, and the second sheet is the stub portion. When the two sheets are held together by the first and second holding means they have a rst short length which enables them to be addressed in one type of processing machine which can only accept blanks of the first short length. Upon removal of the rst holding means and the tear-away portion attached to the first holding means, the combined check-stub length when held together by the remaining holding means and flattened into a common plane, comprise a longer length permitting the check-stub blank to be processed in a machine which will only accept blanks of the longer length.

Brief description of the drawing The following description will best be understood by reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGURE 1 illustrates the prior art;

FIGURES 2a through 2c illustrate three views of the check-stub blank arrangement according to the invention; and

FIGURE 3 illustrates the check-stub when opened to form the longer length.

Description of the preferred embodiment FIG. 1 illustrates a check and stub blank form used in the prior art. This form indicated generally at 100 includes a check portion 1 and a stub portion 2. The overall length of the check and stub is approximately 21 inches in length in order to permit this form to be processed in certain type of computing equipment such as computing equipment manufactured by Burroughs Corp. More particularly, the Burroughs Models 1500 and 4000 series will only operate with 21" check-stub blanks for certain type operations such as one line payrolls (all entries on the stub are on a single line). However, the abovementioned Burroughs computers cannot print addresses on the check and stub as rapidly as other equipment presently available. This lack of speed slows the entire check processing operation, particularly where the address includes several lines of information, which is to be inserted for example at 7 on the check portion and at 5 on the stub portion. Because of the relatively slow address speed, it is customary to print the addresses at 5 and 7 by use of other standard equipment for example, addressing equipment manufactured by the Addressograph-Multigraph Corp., such as for example, Model 1950 GG. Thereafter, the check-stub blank is inserted into the Burroughs processing equipment which inserts the various items of information on the check and the stub in the columns or yboxes indicated at 4. This information may include such items as gross amount due, additions, subtractions, and total amount of the check after the additions and subtractions. When the check 1 was to be cashed, it was separated from the stub by tearing along perforations 3.

The check-stub blank of the present invention is illustra'ted in FIGS. 2 and 3 and enables the use of high speed Burroughs 4000 computers with high speed addressing machines such as those manufactured by International Business Machines which will only accept checkstub lengths of up to approximately 17".

Referring to FIG. 2b, a side view of the check-stub blank is illustrated. This blank includes a separate top sheet portion 20 and a separate back sheet portion 21 which are held together in back-to-back relation by the end portions 1 5 and 16.

T-he View of the novel check-stub blank of this invention is shown in FIGURES 2x2-c. These views indicate that the top sheet 20 includes a check portion 10 and a tear-away portion 14. Perforations for separating the top sheet into its component parts are provided in locations marked 13 and 13". It should be noted that the checkstub blank of this invention as shown in FIGS. 2a, 2b, and 2c, has an overall length of approximately 15". When the end portions 15 and 16 are removed the overall length is reduced to 14". The tear-away portion 14 in FIG. 2a has an approximate length of 6% while the check portion 10 has an approximate length of 7%. These values however are not critical. As clearly seen from FIG. 2a, the end portions 15 and 16 have holes 19 formed therein. The holes 19 permit the check-stub blank of this invention to be pre-addressed in the high speed IBM equipment such as the IBM Model 1403. Printer. Perforations 19 are standard IBM pin feed guide holes which are required to process the sub in the IBM equipment. It should also be noted that the prior art checkstub arrangement shown in FIG. l. could not be processed in IBM equipment for the following reasons: (l) the check-stub length was too long, and (2) the checkstub blank did not have perforations required for feeding into the IBM equipment.

Referring to FIG. 2c, a back view of the check-stub blank 21 of FIG. 2b is illustrated. Back sheet 21 is perforated at 13 and 13 for separating the stub portion 23 from end portions 15 and 16. It should be noted that the stub portion 23 can be generally similar to the stub portion 2 shown in FIG. 1. The columns and boxes 24 could be (but need not necessarily be) generally similar to the arrangement 4 in FIG. 1. The back side 31 of the stub portion 23 can be provided with a material, such as carbon for making a copy of the information recorded in the columns.

The check-stub blank 30 shown in FIG. 2a is fed into the IBM pre-addressing equipment which prints in the address of the payee at 12. The address of a bank for example, or other party can also be printed at points 11 and 11 on both the check and tear-away portion 14. If the back side 32 of the tear-away portion 14 is provided with material for making a carbon, the imprinting of information located at point 11 will reproduce the address on, in the area 33 of the stub portion 23, without having to reverse the blank form in the IBM machine.

After processing the check-stub blank through the IBM pre-addressing equipment the check-stub blank must then be processed through the Burroughs 4000 computer equipment which will insert the amount of the check and fill in the columns shown in the stub portion at 24. As noted previously, the Burroughs 4000 equipment for the one line entry operation, previously mentioned, will only accept check lengths of approximately 21". The check stub blank shown in FIGURES 2a through c, however, is only l5". The novel check-stub blank of this invention is then converted from the check-stub blank shown in FIGS. 2a-c into a 21l check-stub blank shown in FIG. 3.

This conversion is accomplished as follows: y

Referring to FIGS. 2a-c the end portion 16 is removed by separation at perforations 13. After separation of the end portions 16 the tear-away portion 14 is also separated from the check portion 10 along perforations 13'. The operation of separating the end portions 16 and the tearaway portion 14 from the check-stub blank shown in FIGS. Za-c is known as bursting and can be performed as a single operation. To facilitate removal of the end portion 16 and the blank portion 14 in one operation, it has been found to be convenient to have perforations 13 extend only through the back sheet portion 21 rather than through 14 and 21. After bursting the check-stub blank shown in FIGURES 2a-c, the remaining portions of the check-stub blank includes the check portion 10, the end portion 15, and the stub portion 23. These remaining portions are then spread out into a common plane as shown in FIG. 3 to form a 21% inch check-stub blank. The end portion 15 holding the check and stub portion together is folded flat. Thereafter, the stub portion 23 and the check portion 10 held together by the end portion 15 can then be processed through the Burroughs 4000 computer equipment without difficulty. After the check has been processed through the Burroughs 4000 equipment which completes the check and lls in columns 24 in the stub portion, the check is then processed in the 'usual manner and eventually may be sent to 4the payee or his designee.

The payee or his designee upon receiving the check can separate the check portion 10 from the stub portion 23 by simply removing (bursting) the end portion 15 along perforations 13". This effectively separates the checkstub arrangement into the remaining component parts. The back part 33 of the stub 23 as indicated above can have the payees name imprinted therein. This imprint as noted previously resulted from the printing of the payees name generally at point 11 shown on tear-away portion 14 in FIG. 2a. Alternately, after bursting the cornpleted check or stub or both can -be sent to the payee or the payee and his designee simply by inserting either the check or stub or both into envelopes having a window positioned to allow the address printed on the check or stub to show through the envelope. v

What I claim is:

1. A check-stub blank which is addressable by an IBM type 1403 machine and processable through a Burroughs type 4000 machine, comprising:

rst and second elongated sheets of material, each sheet having a front and back side with printing on each front face of said sheets,

rst and second separate holding means respectively positioned at each end of said sheets to hold the back side of said sheets in contact, said holding means having guide holes formed therein to facilitate the processing of the check-tub blank in the addressing type machine requiring a rst length of approximately 15 inches;

said first sheet consisting of a tear-away portion and a check portion, said tear-away and check portions lbeing separated by perforations formed therebetween to facilitate easy separation of the two portions;

said second sheet being a stub portion having perforations formed therein between said first and second holding end means, and said stub portion having columns printing on its front face and a copy forming material positioned along the columns on the back side of the stub for reproducing the information printed in the columns;

said tear-away portion further including on the back side thereof an additional portion of copy forming material along one edge to produce on the back side of said stub, below said copy material, any informa tion printed on its front face along said one edge; and

said check portion having perforations formed therein between said check portion and said second separate holding means to facilitate removal of said first holding means and said tear-away portion in a single bursting operation,

whereby, upon removal of said tear-away portion and first holding means, said check portion, second holding means, and stub portion comprise a second length of approximately 21 inches when formed in a common plane, the second length to permit single line entries on said check-stub blank by said processing type machine.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,258,206 10/ 1941 Hasting. 2,262,347 11/1941 Sturc 282-22 2,536,371 1/1951 Hutchison 282-23 2,614,865 10/ 1952 Shennan 282--22 3,137,517 6/1964 Graff 282-29 FOREIGN PATENTS 974,026 8/ 1960 Germany.

JEROME SCHNALL, Primary Examiner 

